Xah Lee’s tips on elisp were super useful to me. A relic of the usenet era (an infamous troll on comp.lang.lisp), but someone who has added a lot of value to a lot of lives
He was banned from HN long ago too. Random long-ass thread he started on the Python un back in 2009 about this stuff I had saved an archive of for some reason:
He even replies for once further down in typical style complete with a classic
Also, thanks to many supporters over the past years.
Truly Your Superior,
Xah
Like, yeah he is likely somewhere on the spectrum and he has some useful insights and material. But he's also kind of a raging asshole with a chip on his shoulder the size of mountain who would pop into technical groups and dump monologues out of nowhere then vanish, or at most deign to maybe add a bit more odd responses loaded with condescension and victimhood. I'm not sorry there are some colorful people like that around for a variety of reasons. That kind of personality can do neat stuff sometimes, and that he can have his own long running site and put up all his thoughts and opinions and then have entire new generations see and reconsider them down the road regardless of any bans from anywhere else is itself a testament to the promise of the internet and speech. And something I'm happy to point to by people who go ballistic about moderation on social media or the like. You don't have to be trapped by that.
At the same time I completely understand all the bans because holy crap. That kind of rant is enjoyed in strict moderation. Though that so many of us would respond seriously in retrospect is kind of nice too even if the banhammer came down afterwards when it got repetitive. Anyway, random anecdote! On reflection that too is itself part of the fascination around people like this, so many of the rest of us end up with shared recollections and stories to pass down. They become some part of the common lore of communities, the mad sorcerer/wiseman living in the cave up the mountain from the village of old. Often expelled from regular society for good reason, yet still subjects of interest and in some societies even a certain sort of respect.
I don't know if he had a chip on his shoulder. He just talks like a troll on slashdot or an old BBS board, dropping in with a few paragraphs with a fairly strident position, and says anyone who disagrees with him is stupid.
I think people got super upset because he used his real name, he's a minor celebrity, and it wasn't a BBS forum.
I think he did it because it got attention, and he didn't really care about upsetting a few people on an internet forum. I also find it a bit disingenuous when people talk about how evil and deranged he is like they've never ever seen anything a bit strident posted on the internet.
Yes, there's some correlation between internet trolling and socioeconomic tendencies. He might be the kind of guy who takes milk from the work fridge and never tosses a quarter into the tin. But the people who seem most strident about how he's a terrible person are playing the same game as him.
As far as I can tell, one of his bigger controversies were essentially roasting a certain programming community for being smug and elitist (while being smug and elitist himself, along with a lot of swearing and insults). I wonder if the huge amount of offense caused (and taken) was partly because smug and elitist people don't like to be roasted like that, especially by a guy who is mostly famous for writing introduction to emacs tutorials (thus not exactly a technical elite, in a lot of people's eyes).
He himself says in that thread I posted he was banned in 2009. Maybe he appealed, it was temp, he confused an automatic shadowban and enough people vouched his good elisp stuff that it was undone (was that even a thing at the start?) or he just imagined the whole thing for some other reason. I forgot my account from that time and then browsed for years before remaking a new one, and I can't really remember anymore what moderation was like under pg. Xah's stated reason makes no sense and there is nothing objectionable in his comments but there it is.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Anyway, no deep meaning there on my part and this is all kind of a sidetrack from folks who want to talk elisp. it was just seeing the name again after so long made me think back and reflect a bit on how human society remixes old and new as technology changes. A number of communities from the old era can probably think of colorful characters like that, not trolls seemingly but genuinely neurodivergent, not necessarily welcome yet not exactly out of hand rejected either. And with pearls amongst everything else. Also echoes of different civilizations than classic western.
I hadn't heard the name in quite some time, but I distinctly remember similar behavior on other mailing lists. I think it was one of the Omni Group's Mac lists - macosx-talk or -admin or -dev, I can't quite recall.
I've often wondered why programmers seem to have such big egos. I've come up with a possible explanation:
It is nearly impossible to explain your program to a non-programmer. Therefore you easily get the feeling that you are smart and they are not. You understand something they don't and most of them seem to be incapable of understanding it even if you try your best to explain it.
Programmers aren't the only ones doing intellectual work or that requires some kind of talent or knowledge, making them feel smart. Thus they are not the only ones with big egos (I could think of doctors, artists, musicians, physicists, university lecturers, politicians, celebrities, etc.)
Unless thinking only programmers have a big ego is a result of this big ego :-)
Are you perhaps confusing him with Erik Naggum, cos there just happens to be a post on HN about Erik right now. And Erik could be something special when a fuse blew!
I recently stumbled over, and started using (and modifying) Xah's "xah-fly-keys" emacs bindings, which are a somewhat more radical implementation of the ideas behind ergoemacs (e.g. use Emacs without any "chording", i.e. without ever having to press two keys at once apart from shift+letter).
"xah-fly-keys.el is a modal editing mode for emacs, like vi, but the design of key/command choice is based on command frequency statistics and ease-of-key score. Most frequently used commands have most easy keys."
I can confirm, that the amount of work on the hands is extremely reduced with xah-fly-keys vs. vanilla emacs (depending on where you put the command mode switch), though I have no experience with evil or vi to compare against.
And on the python mailing lists. The last I recall seeing that name was in context of crowd funding after going through some tough times. It was quite sad. Hope things are better now.
Long love ergomacs!